Month: September 2015

Apple ginger cider

The other day we went to Aoyama to pick up our new car and we stopped for lunch on our way in a little passage in Aoyama dori with food trucks and cafe barracks celebrating the chia seed week. Don’t ask me what it is, I didn’t really get the point, none of of the food served was using chia, probably some promotional event… 

Still, they serve some decent vegan food and serve some drink, this is where we tried the apple-ginger cider. It was made out of French sparkling apple juice and ginger syrup, and quite good, though a little too sweet, so I decided to try making some today and invented my own recipe.

I had some fresh ginger root, so I made a syrup out of it by cutting into small bits one large root. I boiled it into 1/3L of water where I added some block sugar, once the syrup was ready I just let it cool down. For the apple juice, I don’t have a juicer, so I couldn’t make my own apple juice, so I bought some natural basic apple juice. And same for the sparkling water, just soda water. I mixed then in the following proportions: 1/4L of ginger syrup where I left the cubes of gingers for a better taste, but you can filter; 1/3L of apple juice and 1/3L of soda water.  If you like you can serve with ice cube, I like it at room temperature.

My Rolls Royce

No it’s not my new car but my new amazing rice cooker. 

I have had rice cookers for a long time. My first one was offered by Gentiane when I moved to Paris. It was a nice one, classic Chinese style (I mean a round one with a top like a lid). I used it all the time. 

Then ten years ago, during a stay in Tokyo I decided to buy a Japanese style one. I went to Bic Camera, the temple of hi-tech, cooking and toys.  I spend a lot of time to choose it. There were so many kinds. I chose a quite small one (3 cups), very simple, white. Back in France I was helped by Japanese friends to understand how it works. And I also bought a really big adapter to use it with french electricity damned 220V vs 110V. 

Last month, when I moved to my new apartment, I left it in my old appartement and decided to find a new one which doesn’t need the adapter anymore. And because in my kitchen I have a lot of black stuff, I was looking for a black one. 

I found it. French one, bigger (5 cups) than I wanted but so nice!

And now I can cook almost everything with it (rice, seeds, lentils, pastas, even yogurt, cream and more). I love it. 

Saturday bowl lunch

Back to our routine, lot of work and week end in the country. Saturday morning tennis and one-bowl lunch. 

Today the market was really good, edamame, green beans, lots of fruits…  So the lunch bowl was really simple: chick peas, edamame, green beans, cucumber, sesame seeds, with lemon juice and olive oil; and for the proteines chicken and black pepper balls. Simple, delicious.

Ingredients for bread

Multi grain and whole wheat little bread made for breakfast
Multi grain and whole wheat little bread made for breakfast

At first when I started to bake my own bread I didn’t know much about it and I didn’t know how to chose the ingredients. As in any preparation the quality of the ingredient is crucial and it is not easy to understand what is a good flour and what is not, and also there are so many types of flours and bread that it took me some time. More over as I access information about bread mainly from French sources adapting to the Japanese available products was a hard task!

After using a lot of French organic products and random flours I could find in Japan, I think I have found a good set of resources locally. My main source of ingredients and in particular raw yeast is Cuoca. They have a wide selection of products, you can order on-line, but for me the best is that they have a shop that covers half a floor at Mitsukoshi Nihonbashi. My favorite flour there is the “Tradition Francaise” by Viron, perfect for every white bread, and in particular baguette.
For most of the bread now I use the organic flour I can find in the supermarket. It is not a local product but the whole wheat flour and the hard flour are really perfect for my breads.
For the seeds, I haven’t find yet something that satisfies me fully in Japan. A lot of the seeds are not organic or comes from China, which I must say worries me because of pollution problems. Right now I use seeds that I buy in France in any organic shop such as Bio C Bon, Naturalia etc… but I hope I’ll find something suitable soon in Japan!

Happy week-end, for me it’s going to be a lot of baking I know!!!

Back to my kitchen!!!

After being away from home for more than 10 days I’m really happy to be back to my kitchen. After eating out a lot (even though recently it’s been easier to find simple food in restaurants in France) I really need to get back to my basic diet. As soon as we were done with unpacking, I went down for grocery shopping, grabbed some fresh Japanese mushrooms: shimeji and maitake (kind of oyster mushroom), and some sprouts. I cooked some plain rice, grilled the mushroom in a pan with a bit of butter, add just before serving some sesame seeds and a drop of soya sauce, and served the whole as a vegan donburi.

Mushrooms and sprouts donburi
Mushrooms and sprouts donburi

In the following weeks you’ll see that while in France I packed a few ingredients I love and still can’t find easily in Tokyo, some herbs from my parents’ garden in Aix, some flour for baking bread, tones of quinoa… and  I’m really looking forward to using them!

Smoked mackerel and salad

Today, for a quick healthy meal, I made a really simple salad. Of course the main base is with seeds (as always), here it’s a mix of lentils, quinoa and brown rice, then I add tomato, avocado, beetroot, balsamic vinegar, goji berries, a few of sunflower seeds and on the top: smoked mackerel. 

Bon appetite.  

Simply veggies

I’m still a bit suffering from jetlag, and I wake up early, but in France it’s all dark until 7:00am, so there’s not much to do. So let me introduce an other recipe of delicious veggies, like I already miss them!

Grilled veggies are the best! Potato, sweet potato, kabocha and broccoli. I just added a few pieces of prosciutto.  An other pre-travel meal perfect to empty the fridge and to sustain my hunger for veggies.

Broccoli and mashed potatoes

Before and after traveling I feel like needing more than ever fresh fruits and veggies and super simple recipes. So let me share with you a new idea I add. I wanted to eat mashed potatoes, I love them! But I don’t make some too often. So for this recipe I prepared simple mash potatoes with only a bit of butter, then I added some little chunks of broccoli, and finished with an egg, and lot of pepper. Simply delicious!

To France

Et voila! 

Packing done. Everything’s ready. This time I’m traveling to France for work for about 10 days. I’m sure I’ll come back with tones of things, food, fashion and interior related probably!

I’ll be back on 17th!  

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